


When Life Gives You Potatoes

by claysalive (Icarus_is_flying)



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Vetinari is going to Frederick the Great out of these potatoes, Vimes help him, canon-typical prejudice against new things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28727613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarus_is_flying/pseuds/claysalive
Summary: Sybil tries to introduce a new crop to her city, but few things stick to Ankh-Morpork first try. Fortunately, she has some unexpected help...
Relationships: Sybil Ramkin & Havelock Vetinari
Comments: 16
Kudos: 59





	When Life Gives You Potatoes

Lord Vetinari paged through yet another report on the spotted pest. Some plant disease that had cropped up in the local bean crop. Ankh-Morpork wouldn’t starve. There were simply too many trades going for that--spotted pest couldn't reduce beans and wheat and fish supply, and rats were particularly resilient--but a significant loss of a staple crop could mean some pinching, and that meant complaints with no easy resolution. He rubbed his temple with two fingers and flipped to the next page of the report. 

There was a light rap at the door, and Drumknott poked his head in. “Sir. Lady Vimes is asking to see you.” 

A surprise, but not unwelcome. Vetinari laid the report aside and gestured for Drumknott to see her in. A moment later, Sybil swept into the room with spring in her long stride and a picnic basket on her arm. “Hello, Havelock.” 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” He stood. 

Sybil set the basket on the desk, raised the lid, and began removing assorted flatware and napkins like it was her own kitchen table. 

“Lunch?” Vetinari rested his fingers on the desk. “I didn’t realize this was a social call.”

“It isn’t.” She set a small crockery beside the plates. Then she removed the crockery lid and revealed—well, Vetinari wasn't quite sure what it was. A fluffy white mass rather like cream dotted with bits of green, the entire concoction still curling long lines of steam. Sybil scooped a generous helping onto the plates and set one in front of him and took the other for herself. 

He gestured for her to sit before doing the same. Intrigued, he used the fork to prod the white mass. “And what is it exactly?”

“It’s a potato. Or a few potatoes and a little parsley.” She took a bite of hers. “I have a friend in Chimeria I’ve been writing with for years, she’s quite a dragon expert, you know, and she sent me a box of these and a recipe. They eat these as a side dish.” She reached back into the basket and produced a rock that still had dirt on it. She handed it to him. It dribbled dirt on his desk and on the interrupted report, but it was softer than he expected. 

He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize your cooking skills allowed you to turn stones into food.” 

She laughed. “That’s just what it looks like out of the ground. They take a little scrubbing, but they grow quickly, they’re easy to tend, and my dragons love them too.” She took another bite of her potatoes. He knew Sybil wouldn’t try to poison him, combust him with a dragon perhaps, but he appreciated the gesture all the same. 

He set the whole potato on the desk and wiped the grit off his hand with a napkin. “It seems edible enough cooked.” 

“It’s a little bland without seasoning, but I thought you might like it that way.” 

The Patrician took a bite. It was quite bland but warm, like a very soft cheese with even less flavor than plain bread. It was quite pleasant actually. He laid the fork aside. “Kind of you to share this with me.” 

“Not really,” she said brightly. “I want to introduce them to the city. It might help with that bean problem Lord Rust was in a snit about the other night at dinner.” 

"Interesting." He steeped his fingers. “You believe the citizens of Ankh-Morpork would be amenable to these.”

She smiled broadly. “I suppose there’s one way to find out.” 

*** 

Finding land was easy enough. The Ramkin house had plenty of garden space that Sybil offered up, but if it was to be a public project, Lord Vetinari reasoned, it ought to be grown on public land, which was how it ended up in a corner of the palace garden.

The garden staff had been a little perplexed, but by the time Sybil’s crates of potatoes arrived, the plot was ready to go. The ground had also been tilled for planting. 

Gathpode, the head gardener, looked at the knobby, dirt-covered TayToes for a long time. Most mutant carrots he’d ever seen. Or else a turnip had gone very, very wrong. He wasn’t sure which and he was a little embarrassed to ask. He looked to Lady Vimes standing in the middle of the small field. She had a sooty apron and heavy gloves on. 

“You think they’ll grow all right?” she asked cheerily. 

“Well—“ Gathpode scratched his head. “Can’t rightly say, ma'am. We’re on loam.” 

“And what does that mean?” 

“Means I’ve never grown TayToes before, but it’s worth a try, I guess.” 

As it turned out, loam made for surprisingly good farmland. The potatoes sprouted into a forest of flowering greens, suspicious tubers well hidden from view. There was some dodgy business with slugs, but the gardeners went after them with a vengeance and soon considered the strange plants a point of personal pride. 

After seventy-two days, Lady Ramkin supervised the digging up of the first plants. The tubers were about the size of a fist and a rusty color not unlike the Ankh. 

“Now what, ma’am?”

She took a very well-creased letter from her pocket and perused the contents. “We harvest them, cut up a few, and use them to start the crop over. The rest we can give to anyone who wants to grow them themselves.” 

***

The Watch’s sharpest were gathered around Cheri’s work table. All the burners had been turned off, so it was safe as it could be. They stood staring at the sack of strange vegetables Vimes had dropped off, apparently trying to reduce his own house's stock of the things. 

“Looks like a bush to me,” said Angua. She looked about as impressed as the commander had been.

Nobby poked at one of them. “Miss Sybil was trying to give them away too. Had little pamphlets and everything on growing and cooking them yourself.” 

“I can see why no one wanted them.” Angua crossed her arms. “Looks like it’s got something wrong with it.”

Cheri removed her goggles and held up a paper-thin slice of the potato to the light. "Nothing's wrong with it. I mean, it's not rotten or poisoned or anything. Perfectly fine for eating, I think they just look like that." 

“Hmph. Nothing good comes out of the ground,” said Colon. He waved a finger to emphasize his point.

“Carrots come out der ground,” said Detritus. 

An awkward silence fell over the group. Cheri coughed.

“Yes,” Carrot said slowly. “Carrots do come out of the ground. And other things.” 

“Seems like a reasonable place for a food to grow,” Angua said. 

Colon flushed. “Everyone knows carrots are all right. You can trust ‘em. But these, these are from foren climes.”

Nobby prodded the potatoes with the hilt of his standard-issue sword. “How do you cook them anyway?” 

“Boil them,” Cheri supplied. She snapped her alchemist's goggles to the top of her head. “They’re mostly water actually, starch and water.”

“Starch?" Detritus wrinkled his brow in concentration. "Like in der shirts?” 

“No, like bread. Boiling them breaks down the—“ 

Cheri began detailing her potato research to Detritus and Angua, and as the others dispersed, Nobby looked around then slipped a single potato into his pocket. 

***

“I don't understand why no one wants them. I had pamphlets.” 

“You did.” Havelock rested his folded hands on his desk. “But it does appear our attempts to introduce the crop has been unsuccessful.” 

“Well, why on the Disc is that? They’re the best potatoes I’ve ever seen.” Sybil knew she hadn’t seen very many potatoes to compare, but the insides were all the same when they were mashed up. A bit like swamp dragons, come to think of it. She liked potatoes, and Havelock had been kind enough to help her with the project, but what were they supposed to do with thousands of the things? 

“The rejection likely has more to do with the intended recipient than the gift, Sybil.”

"Well, what are we going to do with them all?" She resisted the urge to slump in her chair. It wouldn't help really. She wasn't surprised Ankh-Morpork hadn't taken to the new crop, but she was jolly well disappointed. Perhaps she ought to have stuck with dragons.

Havelock made a small, conciliatory gesture. "If Chimeria prefers them, we could sell them back."

"Oh, it's not about turning a profit, Havelock. But if people don't want them, I suppose there's not much to be done." She waved a hand. "We could always chop them up into little bits for fertilizer, I suppose. Might as well get some good out of them." 

The door creaked open, and Drumknott appeared. “Sir, Commander Vimes is here for his appointment. Shall I ask him to wait?”

Something flickered across Havelock's face, the slightest twitch of a muscle that would have been a shout of inspiration from another man. Sybil narrowed her eyes. "What are you thinking?"

"I believe I may have hit on a solution. Please see the commander in, Drumknott. I have a new assignment for the Watch. One that may require his… sharpest men.”

***

That was how Colon and Nobby ended up on po-tay-toe guard duty. The Patrician requested the field be guarded but not too well, which apparently meant a little stool and supper from the palace kitchen for each of them. But no bribes. The Watch still had standards, Vimes said in a tone that meant he thought the whole thing was a little ridiculous. Nobby wasn't sure who would be bribing them anyway, but guard duty turned out to not be so bad. They didn’t even have to patrol around the field all night. They could sit on the stools and watch the po-tay-toes like a pair of dukes. Nobby wondered if Vimes would mind if they played cards. 

Colon shook his head. “‘s not right, Nobby.”

“What’s not right?”

“These poe tat to’s. Awful foren.”

“Lady Vimes likes ‘em.” 

“She likes everything. Even you.”

Nobby couldn’t argue with that. He scratched his head under his helmet. “Seems like we’re putting a lot of work in, guarding them but not too good.” 

“Course we are. Can’t have just anyone making off with the Patrician’s po-tatt-o’s, can we?” 

Nobby nodded and tried not to think about the sack he had tucked between the rows of plants. 

*** 

Colon and Nobby stood at attention while the Patrician surveyed the field. It had been thoroughly picked over, and in the whole field, only four lonely stalks were still standing, though they stood at an odd angle. Lord Vetinari leaned on his cane and raised an eyebrow at the men. “And it was like this this morning?”

“Yessir,” said Colon. “Was quiet at first but had by the end of the night, we had folks making off with whole plants. But the first night was just the Thieves Guild, so it was all above board.” 

“Of course, of course. But surely stealing all the potatoes would exceed their quotas." 

Colon and Nobby exchanged glances. "There may have been some non-guild thieves, sir, later on, but they were a little fast to be checking for a license."

"And you didn’t stop them.”

“Well, sir, we did run after them waving our swords a bit.” 

“Waving your swords.”

“Just a bit.” 

The Patrician gave the garden a measured look then smiled. “Splendid. Do keep up the good work, gentlemen.” 

He made his way back toward the palace. Colon took off his helmet and scratched his head. “Now what do you think that was all about?”

Nobby shrugged and hoped the Patrician hadn't noticed the full sack sitting beside the guards' stools. 

*** 

Vimes trudged into the Watchhouse. Vetinari had been awful pleased with how quickly Sybil's newfangled potatoes had vanished--the opposite of the Watch's usual problem, which was keeping track of things--but Vetinari wasn't the one having to sneak potatoes to a dragon under the dinner table. Or distracting the Thieves Guild's from just how many unlicensed vegetable thefts were taking place. 

“Where’s Carrot? I need to—“ He stopped short and stared. Nobby was hunched over his dinner, a plate of what looked like bread at first but on second glance was most certainly not bread. It was in golden-brown sticks about the length and width of a human finger with a little steam still curling off them. 

“Nobby.”

“Yessir.”

“What are you eating?” 

The corporal bobbed his head. “It’s potatoes.” 

Vimes had eaten a lot of potatoes the past few weeks, and they had never looked like _that_. “What did you do to them?”

“Wanted to cook them faster, so I started slicing them up. Cheri suggested frying them, and we cooked it up on her burner. They’re good with salt, sir.”

“He’s been eating potatoes for a week,” Colon chimed in from his own desk. “My wife’s cooking them now. They’re even selling them out of a little booth on North Street.” 

_The whole city’s gone potato mad,_ Vimes thought, but what he said was “What?”

Colon held up his own dinner. “Serving them baked with a cut in the middle. Right respectable vegetable with a little butter.” 

The grease dripping off the plate seemed more like a side dish than a condiment, but Vimes couldn’t judge. 

“They’re like a wossname… wonky turnip. Boil ‘em, mash ‘em. Stick ‘em in a stew even.” Nobby brightened. “You should try them.” 

That was Ankh-Morpork all right. They’d like anything as long as you convinced them it was their idea first. Then they’d sell it on the street corner at an outrageous price. 

Something else clicked in the back of his mind. “Who’s watching the field?”

“Detritus, sir. We told him everybody who comes through is allowed to take ten.”

“Are there even ten potatoes left?”

“No, but people like to be sure,” said Colon. 

“Don’t worry, commander. You can have a couple of mine.” 

Nobby opened his desk drawer, releasing a cloud of dust that looked more like one of Chery's experiments had gone wrong. When the haze disappeared, Vimes looked inside and found nothing but potatoes. He took his cigar out of his mouth. “You stole them?”

“Seemed like they were for taking, sir,” Nobby said defensively. 

“Vetinari’s going to be insufferable.” 

“Sir?”

He bit his cigar. “Back to work.” 

*** 

Sam pushed open the door to the dragon shed and found his wife in the pen of Lady Marian Westkit Greyhare III, the dragon pinned under one arm for a nail clipping. The dragon hung limper than a wilted plant in the sun, resigned to its fate. Sam stopped outside of sneezing distance. “Sybil. Your potatoes are a wild success.” 

Sybil looked up, and her look of intent concentration turned into a bright smile. “Hello, Sam. You really think so?”

“Hagra’s has added them to the menu, and on my way home, caught Cut-Me-Own-Throat hawking them as a cure for warts. It’s like they were always here.” 

She beamed. “I’m glad.” 

He risked a little dragon sneeze to kiss his wife’s cheek. "Well done.”

“Thank you. I know you weren't very keen on Havelock's plan, but I do appreciate your help.”

Sam stepped out of the dragon pen then paused, hands rested atop the gate. “We’re not having potatoes for dinner, are we?”

“No, dear. I'm glad they're popular now, but I'm getting a little tired of them.”

Sam grinned. "Me too, Sybil. Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> I've never grown potatoes, but I have read The Martian, so my potato facts are as accurate as that book is.


End file.
